Halifax on upswing: Better planning set stage for revival

From March, a view of the Nova Centre construction site from the Prince George Hotel. Former HRM urban designer Andy Fillmore writes that initiatives like Halifax by Design have led to the downtown building boom. (INGRID BULMER/Staff)

If you were new to downtown Halifax sometime during the past few years, it would be entirely understandable if you looked around at the construction cranes swinging overhead, the visible investment of tax dollars in public projects and the giddy pace of new restaurant openings, and took it all for granted.

In fact, if you had just arrived, it all might seem kind of, well, ordinary.

After all, progressive cities the world over evolve and prosper because of such regeneration.

But it hasn’t always been that way in Halifax. In fact, what we are now witnessing is an honest-to-goodness city-building renaissance, and it is extraordinary.

Our renaissance is extraordinary because it’s the result of inspired work by passionate people, toiling away often invisibly within government, the private sector and in volunteer roles from all sectors of the community.

It is thousands of collaborations and acts of trust, hundreds of consultations, and scores of bold decisions that together created the innovative new public policy that our city so urgently needed, and that is now transforming it.

You see, until recently, downtown was teetering on the brink of irrelevance after several decades during which there was no meaningful public or private investment. And oh boy, did this neglect show. Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road were in decline with many papered-over shop windows. Downtown sidewalks were cracked and dirty. Office and retail uses were bleeding to the suburbs, and restaurants were failing.

One of the greatest challenges for downtown had been the notoriously frustrating development rules, compounded by a moody and unpredictable approval process that could drag on for years and frequently resulted in appeals and counter-appeals. In despair and frustration, the development community often claimed that there might as well have been a “Closed For Business” sign hanging at the entrance to downtown.

In response, slowly at first but with gathering momentum, citizens, city planners and elected representatives began to take up the cause to restore our downtown to its previous position as the region’s bustling economic engine. And from this course correction eventually flowed the innovative new public policy that today is reinventing downtown.

The early prototype of this work was the city’s bold 25-year growth plan known as the Regional Plan, adopted by council in 2006.

That was followed in 2007 by a pair of downtown urban design studies that identified the site for the new Central Library (now nearing completion), championed the Spring Garden Road streetscaping project (now underway), and moved HRM councillor parking out of the Grand Parade, among other novel propositions. These projects were important, because prior to them the concepts of urban design and place-making were not part of the community discourse on city-building.

But the big game-changer came in 2009 when, after three years of intense public engagement and unimaginable toil by the volunteer Urban Design Task Force, Halifax regional council adopted the HRM by Design Downtown Halifax Plan.

This design-based plan literally rewrote the book on planning and development for downtown. It provided clear direction to applicants, moved approval authority from council to a professional design review committee, and implemented an expedited approval process that measures approval times in months instead of years. The plan is an inflection point in the history of Halifax.

HRM by Design is now being emulated around the country, and has won several national awards.

But the best measure of the plan’s success — the one that is measurable — is this astonishing statistic: In the 20 years before HRM by Design’s adoption, only one major downtown project was built — Bishop’s Landing.

But in the five years since the plan’s adoption, there are 40 projects downtown in various stages of design, approval, construction and completion. That is the power of public engagement, bold public policy and courageous decision-making.

The resurgence of downtown Halifax is bringing thousands of new homes into walkable, transit-accessible urban neighbourhoods.

And although it’s extraordinary for us, it is consistent with a massive tectonic shift in North American home-building away from suburban single-family units toward richly designed urban townhomes, condominiums and apartments in walkable proximity to schools, shops, cultural offerings and public spaces.

And particularly welcome in Halifax is that this movement back to the city is characterized by an emerging tradition of contemporary architectural design.

But here is a note of caution. The splendid pageant of city-building that swirls around us in downtown Halifax today is fragile and must not be taken for granted.

To nourish it and build its momentum, we must embrace and accelerate the behaviours that made it possible in the first place: Trust in community engagement. Give policy writers room for experimentation and innovation. Challenge silos between departments and organizations. Value common sense ahead of dogmatic adherence to rules. Relax the command-and-control grip on decision-making at key moments. Push back against pessimism and gate-keeping. And celebrate success.

The next time you are out in downtown Halifax and you happen upon one of the projects that is part of the renaissance, perhaps you will pause for a moment and reflect upon all that it took to make that project happen.

And then perhaps you might think about what you could do in your life to encourage innovation in our community. And once you have taken action on that, you will have become that wonderful variety of human of which Halifax needs more.

You will have become a city-builder.

Andy Fillmore is VP of Planning & Development at the Waterfront Development Corp. in Halifax. He is the former manager of urban design at Halifax Regional Municipality, where he led several award-winning projects including HRM by Design. In 2012, Mr. Fillmore won a National Urban Leadership Award from the Canadian Urban Institute for his work on regenerating the urban core of Halifax.